Britain’s Scramble For Africa: The New Colonialism

Colin Todhunter

Africa is facing a new and devastating colonial invasion driven by a determination to plunder the natural resources of Africa, especially its strategic energy and mineral resources. That’s the message from a damning new report from War On Want ‘The New Colonialism: Britain’s scramble for Africa’s energy and mineral resources’ that highlights the role of the British government in aiding and abetting the process.

Written and researched by Mark Curtis, the report reveals the degree to which British companies now control Africa’s key mineral resources, notably gold, platinum, diamonds, copper, oil, gas and coal. It documents how 101 companies listed on the London Stock Exchange (LSE) – most of them British – have mining operations in 37 sub-Saharan African countries and collectively control over $1 trillion worth of Africa’s most valuable resources.

The UK government has used its power and influence to ensure that British mining companies have access to Africa’s raw materials. The report exposes the long-term involvement of the British government (Labour and Conservative) to influence and control British companies’ access to raw materials. Access has been secured through a revolving door between the political establishment and British mining companies, with at least five British government officials taking up seats on the boards of mining companies operating in Africa.

Augmented by WTO rules, Britain’s leverage over Africa’s political and economic systems has resulted in a company like Glencore being able to to show revenues 10 times that of the gross domestic product (GDP) of Zambia.

Under the guise of the UK helping Africa in its economic development (a continuation of the colonial paternal narrative), $134 billion has flowed into the continent each year in the form of loans, foreign investment and aid, while British government has enabled the extraction of $192 billion from Africa mainly in profits by foreign companies, tax dodging and the cost of adapting to climate change.

The report highlights the roles played by major companies, such as Rio Tinto, Glencore and Vedanta. From the displacement of people and killings to labour rights violations, environmental degradation and tax dodging, Africa appears to have become a free for all. In only a minority of mining operations do African governments have a shareholding in projects. And even if they do, it tends to be small at 5-20%.

In the report, Mark Curtis argues that an African country could benefit from mining operations by insisting that companies employ a large percentage of their staff from the country and buy a large proportion of the goods and services they procure from the country. However, World Trade Organisation rules prevent African countries from putting such policies in place.

Countries could also benefit from corporate taxation, but tax rates and payments in Africa are minimal and companies are easily able to avoid paying taxes, either by their use of tax havens or because they have been given large tax incentives by governments — or often both. And when companies export minerals, governments usually do not benefit at all. Governments only benefit from exports when there is an export tax. There are almost none in Africa.

Various case studies of abuses and disregard for people’s rights

One of the case studies in the report is the scramble for gas and oil in Moroccan-occupied Western Sahara. Morocco has occupied much of Western Sahara since 1975. Most of the population has been expelled by force, many to camps in the Algerian desert where 165,000 refugees still live. Morocco’s occupation is a blatant disregard for international law, which accords the Saharawi people the right to self-determination and the way in which their resources are to be used.

Over 100 UN resolutions call for this right to self-determination but UN efforts to settle the conflict by means of a referendum have been thwarted by Morocco. The International Court of Justice has stated that there are no ties of sovereignty between Morocco and Western Sahara, and no state in the world recognises Morocco’s self-proclaimed sovereignty over the territory. Despite this, six British and/or LSE-listed companies have been handed permits by the Moroccan government to actively explore for oil and gas resources, making them complicit in the illegal and violent occupation of Western Sahara.

Cairn Energy, based in Edinburgh and LSE listed, is one such company. It is part of a consortium, led by US company Kosmos Energy, that in December 2014 became the first to drill for and later discover oil off the coast of Western Sahara. The former Director of Britain’s Secret Intelligence Service, MI6, Sir Richard Dearlove, has been a member of the Kosmos Board of Directors since 2012.

Saharawis have consistently protested against the exploration activities of oil companies in Western Sahara, but by doing deals with the Moroccan government oil companies such as Cairn are directly undermining the Saharawis’ right to a referendum on self-determination.

Cairn’s claim to support human rights are hard to square with Morocco’s activities in Western Sahara, where basic rights and freedoms are routinely suppressed by the same authorities which have given oil companies ‘rights’ to operate.

The report states that, instead of reining in companies such as Cairn, the British government has actively championed them through trade, investment and tax policies. Successive British governments have long been fierce advocates of liberalised trade and investment regimes in Africa that provide access to markets for foreign companies. They have also consistently opposed African countries putting up regulatory or protective barriers and backed policies promoting low corporate taxes.

In response to the report’s findings, War on Want believes that UK companies must be held responsible for their behaviour in Africa and that the UK government must be held accountable for its complicity in the plunder. It supports calls for mining revenues to stay in the countries where they are mined; for raw materials to be processed in the countries where they are mined to promote maximum value addition; and for governments to act to protect the rights of people affected by mining rather than protecting the profit margins of corporations exploiting them.

On the back of the report, Saranel Benjamin, International Programmes Director at War on Want, says:

“The African continent is today facing a new colonial invasion, no less devastating in scale and impact than the one it suffered during the nineteenth century. It’s a scandal that Africa’s wealth in natural resources is being seized by foreign, private interests, whose operations are leaving a devastating trail of social, environmental and human rights abuses in their wake. For too long, British companies have been at the forefront of the plunder, yet rather than rein in these companies, successive UK governments are actively championing them through trade, investment and tax policies. It is time British companies and the UK government were held to account.”

It is not the first time we see the enabling role of government where the private sector is concerned, regardless of the massive adverse impacts on people, communities and the environment. In capitalism, the state’s role is first and foremost to secure the interests of private capital. In 2014, former British Ambassador to Uzbekistan Craig Murray said that as a state the UK that is prepared to go to war to make a few people wealthy. He added that he had seen things from the inside and the UK’s foreign interventions are almost always about resources.

Military intervention is, however, often the final resort. The institutions of international capitalism – from the World Bank, the IMF and the WTO to the compliant bureaucracies of national states or supranational unions – facilitate private capital’s ability to appropriate wealth and institute everyday forms of structural violence (unemployment, infant mortality, bad housing, poverty, disease, malnutrition, environmental destruction, etc) that have become ‘accepted’ as necessary and taken for granted within mainstream media and political narratives.

When referring to Western countries, those narratives like to use the euphemism ‘austerity’ for deregulation, privatisation and gross inequalities and hardship, while hiding being the mantra ‘there is no alternative’.

When referring to Africa, they use the euphemism ‘helping Africa’ for colonialism and economic plunder, while hiding behind the term ‘investing in’.

Evictions of private tenants increase by over 50 percent in England and Wales

Allison Smith

One in 10 landlords surveyed by the Shelter housing charity survey said they had tenants in arrears for at least two months last year. One in six landlords said they moved to evict tenants over the last three years.

In 2015, the Ministry of Justice reported that household evictions in England and Wales reached record levels, with 42,728 renters forcibly removed from their homes. Between 2010 and 2015, evictions increased by 53 percent—equivalent to more than 170 per day. Private landlords evicted 5,919 tenants during this period.

A Shelter survey of private landlords reveals that since 2000, triple the number of British families now rent in private accommodation. The “buy-to-let” housing boom created the condition for more than 2 million people to become private landlords.

Because so little is known about private landlords, Shelter housing charity worked with a YouGov panel and British Gas to conduct “the largest and most representative survey” of private landlords across the Britain since their last report in 2006. A representative sample of 1,071 private landlords participated.

One of the most alarming statistics is that 80 percent of landlords surveyed have never been registered or joined a trade body. Shelter explains, “Although cause and effect cannot be proven, the survey points to a clear association between being a member of a trade body or registration scheme and being more likely to follow the law and good practice on things such as tenant safety and protecting deposits.”

Recent research by Shelter bears out this statement. In 2015, Shelter reported it received 5,343 calls from private tenants seeking help with problems with their landlords, including delays to basic repairs and issues with damp, dangerous electrical wiring, and unsafe appliances. In London alone, Shelter reported that 60 percent of renters live in unacceptable conditions, including vermin or insect-infested, damp or dangerous accommodations.

Nearly 40 percent of landlords surveyed reported that they were either not in compliance or did not know if they are in compliance with Energy Performance certificates. Eight percent “seem not to be complying with more serious legal requirements such as gas safety checks,” and a further 5 percent were not always protecting tenant deposits. Other than laws regarding gas safety, overall survey results reveal that private landlords have fairly poor knowledge of laws regulating rentals.

Increasing tenant discrimination is also an alarming trend among private landlords, with 42 percent saying they refuse to rent to housing benefit claimants, and 21 percent saying they prefer not to let to renters on any form of state benefit. Forty-one percent of landlords that use a letting agent did not fully delegate the letting responsibility to their agent, and “admitted that it is natural for prejudices and stereotypes to come into letting decisions.”

According to a March 2016 House of Commons briefing paper on the reasons private landlords refuse to rent to benefits claimants and the extent of the problem, “[P]rivate landlords are generally free to refuse to let to Housing Benefit claimants, just as they are free to refuse to let to applicants who are not in receipt of benefit but who have a poor credit history.”

The briefing goes on to say that evidence suggests that discrimination against tenants on housing benefits is increasing. Homeless Link, a membership charity for organisations working directly with people who become homeless in England, said that one of the homeless placement agencies they work with reports that it lost 20 percent of the private landlords it had worked with in the last year. This was “specifically on the grounds that they think they can get higher rents paid by people who are not on benefits.”

Shelter expects that the government’s “Right to Rent” scheme, requiring landlords to carry out checks on all tenants to make sure they have the right to rent property in the country, will likely lead to an increase in discrimination.

Most private landlords in the Shelter survey said they were in either full-time work or retired, and most said they own the home they live in. Of the 1,005 landlords that responded to personal wealth questions, 29 percent reported an annual income of £70,000 or more, making the median household annual income for these landlords near £50,000. Despite their stated wealth, 23 percent of survey participants said they “were not totally confident they were paying enough tax” on their rental income. The average monthly profit per landlord was £650 before tax.

In contrast, the Office for National Statistics (ONS) reports that as the number of private renters in the UK has increased, so has the number of renters living in poverty. Since 2006, the number of private renters living in poverty in England rose from 2.1 million to 3.9 million. This increase is directly linked to the high, and rising, cost of housing, with the average low-income private renter spending more than 50 percent of his or her total household income on rent.

Brexit Consequences: Complexities and Uncertainties

Amita Batra

Brexit, that is, Britain’s decision to leave the European Union was announced on the 23rd of June. The announcement led to an immediate and sharp decline in the value of the  British Pound (GBP). The stock markets in Britain and around the world followed suit with major losses incurred in the initial couple of days after the announcement. While pressure on the GBP continued, the stock markets recovered partially by the end of the working week. The political scenario in the UK is now in the process of getting reconfigured. The timing of the initiation of Brexit from the EU is not yet known even though the EU has shown a firm response and desired that the UK actualise its decision at the earliest. From announcement to initiation to exit, the time it may take to accomplish the task of Britain’s withdrawal from the EU may be long drawn and uncertainty may prevail in the interim. How is the Brexit decision likely to impact the UK economy, its trade and economic cooperation with the EU in future, EU stability and its integration in the global economy, are among the many questions that the world has since been grappling with.

As an immediate consequence of the weakened GBP and associated economic uncertainty, global investors in a risk-off mode are seeking safer currencies like the US Dollar (USD) and Yen. In the process, the USD has strengthened and allowed the Chinese to undertake depreciation of the Renminbi (RMB). The magnitude of RMB depreciation has been small so far. However, if  USD continues to gain strength and there is corresponding and large depreciation in the RMB, speculative forces may trigger potentially destabilising capital outflows not unlike those experienced earlier in the year in January-February. The stability of many emerging market economies could be further endangered by appreciation in their large USD denomination debts. As a positive for the Chinese economy,  RMB devaluation may help push Chinese exports in the immediate short run but over the longer run may lead to competitive devaluation in the region. Indian exports that have seen a steady decline for over a year now may find it difficult to reverse the trend under these circumstances. Capital outflows may also impact the Indian economy and it could as a consequence see lower portfolio inflows. Uncertainty in general will dampen investor sentiment, postpone large investment decisions such as in infrastructure projects and consequently adversely impact growth prospects in the region.

As the UK pulls out of the EU, losing its advantage of access to the single EU market and large investments are postponed owing to the uncertain economic environment the possibility of a slowdown in the UK economy looms large.  In the process, the EU’s growth prospects are also likely to be adversely impacted. The EU is a major trade partner for the UK even though the UK’s trade with non-EU countries has been increasing since 1999. The EU is also a major investor and a major recipient of UK investment.  In 2014, the EU accounted for 44.6% and 53.2% of UK exports and imports of goods and services respectively. In 2013, 43.2% of UK overseas assets were held in the EU, whereas 46.4% of assets held in the UK by overseas residents and businesses were attributable to the EU (www.ons.gov.uk). The economic slowdown will exacerbate the existing woes of the EU which is still struggling with the post 2008 financial crisis outcomes, the travails of the periphery economies and the more recent migration crisis as also of the world economy that has yet to register a sustained recovery from the global financial crisis. For Asia, the slowdown will imply further loss of export demand in its traditional EU market. Transaction costs of trade with, and investment in, the UK and EU will now be higher as both will have to be dealt with as independent economic entities. This may not be so easy. In the case of trade and investment, EU laws, standards and rules are likely to remain the same but the UK will have to negotiate afresh with the WTO. The nationalistic sentiments that have defined the exit campaign may now imply the imposition of higher tariff and other trade barriers by the UK. Asian exports may suffer as a consequence. Stricter provisions with regard to movement of people could be another consequence of the Brexit. Asian economies could be particularly adversely affected with a change in these provisions. A majority of the 42 million international migrants born in Asia were living in Europe in 2015 (International Migration Report 2015 Highlights, UN, 2016). 

     

For India, Brexit may not be an immediate concern. The central bank made careful interventions in the currency market allaying fears of volatility induced costs and it is expected that stable macroeconomic fundamentals and its fastest growing economy status will help India sail through the uncertain economic environment post Brexit. While among the top twenty trading partners for India, UK has a small share of about 2 per cent in India’s total trade. This has not changed much in the last half a decade. How tariffs and other trade regulations alter in the wake of Brexit and hence impact on India’s trade with the UK, while not immediately clear, may also not be immediately critical for India’s trade prospects. EU is a more significant trade partner for India, with a 16 per cent share in exports and around 11 per cent in imports in 2015 (dgft.gov.in). Finalising the India-EU FTA, under negotiation now for almost a decade, should be India’s priority. The issues that have been at the heart of prolonged negotiations such as IPR, migration and movement of people may now acquire new dimensions. At the same time, a separate FTA with the UK may not be immediately possible and certainly not till the UK undertakes its negotiations with the WTO on trade treaties and rules.

For all South Asian economies that are beneficiaries of the non-reciprocal preferential trade treatment under the EU General Scheme of Preferences/Everything But Arms/General Scheme of Preferences Plus (GSP/EBA/GSP Plus) scheme/s, benefits will continue. Though, without the friendly supporting voice of the UK, continued GSP plus preferences to South Asian exports by the EU may not be easily ensured in the future. This is significant as the EU is a major export market for South Asian exports in the labour intensive and revenue generating textiles and apparel sector. Also, in the absence of the UK, Sri Lanka which has been keen on getting back the GSP plus status (suspended in 2013) with the EU may now find it more difficult. Additionally, a slowdown in the UK economy may lead to depressed grants and remittances for the Pakistan economy with consequent adverse implications for its external position. As for trade with UK, much would depend on how far the UK will retain its pre-exit trade rules once the exit is formally complete.

Of course, all of the above uncertainties would be compounded and the ramifications far more complex were instability in the EU to become reality and if the Brexit was to trigger other such reactions from significant other members of the EU. It is also possible that Brexit may play out differently; and as many are hoping, the invocation of Article 50 may be indefinitely delayed or the UK may retain access to the EU. What can however be said without doubt is that the Brexit outcomes are complex, not yet fully comprehensible and uncertainty reigns supreme. In these circumstances it would be best for Asia to strengthen its intra-regional growth impulses, supply chain networks and trade agreements to successfully counter global uncertainties. 

US: “Losing Respect” Abroad

Chintamani Mahapatra

The qualified deterioration of the US’ global influence has been debated for long, but the US leadership seems worried that the country is fast losing respect in the world as well. Of course, when some Americans keep repeating that the US possesses the most powerful military in the world, it does not create respect, but fear. Respect is inspired by one’s economic performance, political ideals and cooperative social fabric.

 

The economic performance of the US is anything but spectacular. It has been experiencing the Great Recession for the last seven years. The unemployment rate is high and is more than the government statistics suggest. Leaders across the political divide complain about jobs travelling abroad and promise to create more jobs for their citizens. According to reports, about seven million people out of 62 million in the age group of 25-54 are neither employed nor looking for employment. The opportunity cost of two million people in US prisons is not common knowledge, but it is real. 

This problem has a spill-over effect on social stability as well. It is extremely difficult and increasingly so for someone who has been arrested or convicted to get a job in any company. That means the prisoners in the US, highest among the developed countries, will remain jobless for the rest of their lives. They will, in other words, be passengers in the revolving door connecting prisons with the streets.

 

Significantly, African-Americans constitute the largest section of the prison population, disproportionate to their numbers in the census figures. During the last several months the killing of African-Americans in the streets of the US by policemen has generated a deep sense of insecurity among the people and resentment among minority communities. The assassination of five white policemen in Dallas and its repercussion across US cities reflect anger, frustration and insecurity in the society. 

  

This has in turn infected the political space in the US. Several leaders belonging to various political parties have expressed diverse opinions on the Dallas incident. Some have expressed sympathy with the police department, some have called for serious investigation and some have even spoken about the need for reforms in the system. While President Barack Obama opines that the situation is not as bad as it was during the 1960s, presumptive presidential nominee of the Republican Party Donald Trump sees a deep racial divide in the society. Everyone, nevertheless, calls for national unity and living the American dream. 

 

The current US social and economic scene, however, does not inspire the international community. American ideals and treatment of minority communities is not reflected in the present state of race relations, and nor does the existing state of the US economy encourage other countries to follow. The days of the Washington Consensus as an economic model are over.

 

On the other hand, the Chinese economic performance has certainly brought international respect and admiration to that country. Generally speaking, US’loss cannot be China’s gain and vice versa. But the evolving Sino-US Cold Confrontation negates that general proposition. China has undoubtedly gained admiration abroad in recent decades, especially around the time the US began to lose it.

 

The 9/11 terrorist attack on the US, harmful fallout of the US invasion of Iraq and then their exit, inability of the US and NATO forces to bring order to Afghanistan after fifteen years of intervention and the mishandling of the Arab Spring culminating in the rise of the Islamic State (IS) have all been perceived as US’ weaknesses. 

In the meantime, Russia’s geopolitical gains in Eurasia and China’s awe-inspiring assertiveness in the East and South China Seas have certainly made these countries less popular and more feared, but the regional countries, particularly the victims of Russian and Chinese muscle flexing, have little expectation from the US except loud lip service. The US is neither in a position to confront Russia except in imposing token or mild sanctions, nor in preventing China from reclaiming islands and militarising some of those in the South China Sea. 

The respect that the US commands from various allies and strategic partners is in serious danger of further erosion. These allies expect the US to protect their interests from being allegedly infringed upon by regional powers, such as Russia and China. But the complex interdependence in the international system has tied US’ hands from behind. The US has deeper economic cooperation with China, and Russia has expansive energy and economic cooperation with US’European allies to the extent that makes it difficult for the NATO members to play the same tune with Washington on critical issues. 

Thus, foreign policy intricacies, domestic, social and political divides, and the economic recession pose serious challenges to the US position in the world. In addition, the Donald Trump phenomenon appears to have frightened its allies around the globe.

WAAW Foundation STEM Scholarship for African Secondary School Girls Interested in STEM Careers 2016

Brief description: Spread the word to your siblings and friends. This summer, The Working to Advance STEM Education for African Women (WAAW) foundation is hosting 40 Secondary school girls for a Science, Technology, Engineering and Math (STEM) camp designed to inspire African girls to explore careers in STEM fields.

Application Deadline: 30th July, 2016

Offered annually? No

Eligible Countries: Countries in Africa

To be taken at (country): Aduvie International School, Abuja, Nigeria

Eligible Fields of Study: The camp aims to pre-expose girls who are likely going to undertake courses in Science,Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) at the university.

About the Award: 2016 STEM Camp targets under-represented senior secondary girls aged 13 – 17 years. The aim of the STEM camp program is to increase girls’ interest and confidence in STEM, provide digital literacy training and create online peer networking platform, where girls connect and continue to learn and improve their technology skills.

In partnership with Sasol Engineering, AFRITEX Initiative, and EduTeen foundation, our weeklong STEM camp sessions will introduce Girls to computer science & programming, mobile application development and STEM hand-on curriculum. They will interact with female role models and emphasize the use of computer science and technology to solve real life problems in their communities by employing locally available resources. Our objective is to empower girls by inculcating the sense that they can contribute to problem solving, entrepreneurship and economic development in their communities.

Lectures will be focused on hands on learning using affordable locally and easily available resources to empower participants with tools and resources to go out and implement solutions after camp.

Type: Secondary School Scholarship

Eligibility: Scholarships and partial scholarships are available for girls in Government or public schools only.

Number of Awardees: 40

Value of Scholarship:  Scholarship covers registration fee, training materials, feeding, boarding, and excursion fee.

There will also be fun and recreational activities such as baking, swimming, sports and game time, Dance-drama presentation, and a field trip or excursion to technological companies, University campuses as well as environmental, ecological and historical sites of interest around Abuja, Nigeria. These activities will give the girls the opportunity to open up and get connected with their peers, instructors and mentors in an informal setting.

Duration of Scholarship: August 7th-13th, 2016

How to Apply: For complete 2016 STEM camp program & application information, visit http://waawfoundation.org/2016-stem-camp-application/.

Visit Scholarship Webpage for details

Award Provider: WAAW Foundaation, Sasol Engineering, AFRITEX Initiative and EduTeen foundation

WAAW Foundation STEM Teacher Training 2016 for Teachers in Africa

Brief description: WAAW Foundation is calling for applications from STEM Secondary Teachers across Africa who are interested in the upcoming WAAW STEM teacher training workshop.

Application Deadline: August 2016. Successful candidates will be reached in 1 – 2 weeks for further details on the programme.

Offered annually? Yes

Eligible Countries: Countries in Africa

To be taken at (country): Nigeria

Eligible Fields of Study: Subjects in Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics Fields

About the Award: WAAW Foundation understands that training STEM Teachers is a critical component in ensuring that African girls are trained in STEM.

For STEM secondary school teachers and educators in Africa, the WAAW Foundation offers engaging, rigorous teacher professional development model which provides tools to empower teachers and their students and transform the classroom into a collaboration space where STEM content comes to life.

Type: Training

Eligibility: This training is for all STEM Secondary Teachers across Africa

Number of Awardees: Not specified

Value of Programme: 

• hands-on learning away from the blackboard
• Africa-focused integrated curriculum that help teachers break down the rote memorization methodologies which are prevalent in the African educational system and which stifles creativity.
• Teachers are trained to develop cutting edge STEM curriculum for their classrooms using affordable locally available resources, train in digital literacy and employ technology and free online resources to enhance learning and engagement in their classrooms.
• Resources for continued learning for STEM teachers and facilitate communities and networks for peer support, mentoring and continued engagement.
• STEM competitions that motivate teachers to keep innovating in their classrooms.

Duration of Programme: Successful Teacher-candidates will be communicated to about further details of the programme

How to Apply: Visit Programme Webpage to apply

Visit Programme Webpage for details

Award Provider: Working to Advance STEM Education for African Women (WAAW) Foundation.

Applications Open for the 17th NIIT Nigeria Scholarship 2016 – IT Training Programme

Application Deadline: 

Last date to fill form 15th July, 2016

Scholarship test date 16th July, 2016

Offered annually? Yes

Eligible Countries: Nigeria

To be taken at (country): Nigeria

About the Programme: IT industry in Nigeria is estimated to among the fastest growing IT industries in the world. NIIT conducts the IT Scholarship exam every year to help identify meritorious students to join this industry and be a part of the global skilled IT Talent pool. Over the last A3 years, NUT Scholarships have become one of the most awaited events in the annual events calendar of the country,

NIIT, a global leader in skills and talent development announced the 17th National Scholarship, 2016 in Nigeria, to reward meritorious students desirous of building successful careers in today’s knowledge economy. For the first time ever, scholarships will be offered in futuristic programs in Digital Transformation under DigiNxt series brand umbrella. NIIT will now offer scholarships in programs like DigiNxt MMS, Big Data, Java Enterprises Apps with DevOps, Digital Marketing apart from Revolutionary MMS and other program. These programs have been introduced by NIIT with a profound understanding of the changing manpower requirement of the Global and Nigerian IT industry.

Eligible Fields of Study: DigiNxt MMS, Big Data, Java Enterprises Apps with DevOps, Digital Marketing apart from Revolutionary MMS. NIIT is also launching state-of-the-art program in financial accounting- “Tally.ERP9” in Nigeria and other programmes.

Brief History: With a thrust on creating skilled manpower for the Nigerian IT industry, the NIIT Nigeria Scholarship will help students get skilled for a Global career in IT through training in technology.

Eligible Applicants: School Leavers, Under Graduates, Graduates [Unemployed, Under-Employed], Individuals desirous of enhancing their technical skill-sets and students in general who aspire to know about I.T. and career in I.T.

Value of Programme: The NIIT Nigeria Scholarship provide Scholarship assistance to deserving and meritorious students across various disciplines to know about I.T. and career in I.T.

How to apply: Visit Scholarship webpage to  apply

www.niitnigeria.com

Don’t Eat the Yellow Rice: the Danger of Deploying Vitamin A Golden Rice

Ted Greiner

What better way to discredit your critics than to rope in 107 naive Nobel Prize winners (all without relevant expertise) to criticize your opposition?

But such tactics are not new. Long ago, the GMO industry spent well over $50 million to promote “Golden Rice” as the solution to vitamin A deficiency in low income countries. They did so well before the technology was completely worked out, let alone tested. Let alone consumer acceptability tested. Let alone subjecting it to standard phase 2 and 3 trials to see if it could ever solve problems in the real world.

So why has this apparently straightforward scientific project not reached completion after so many decades?

Because the purpose of Golden Rice was never to solve vitamin A problems. It never could and never will. It’s purpose from the beginning was to be a tool for use in shaming GMO critics and now to convince Nobel Laureates to sign on to something they didn’t understand.

I worked with a conventional fortified rice technology (Ultra Rice) for years for the NGO PATH in several countries. It became clear to us that rice-consuming populations were extremely picky about their rice and unwilling to accept even the tiniest changes in its appearance, smell or taste.

They are now to be convinced to eat rice that’s bright yellow in color? That will never happen on any large scale. If it does, it will be because a huge investment was made to overcome consumer resistance. Money that COULD have been spent to convince people simply to eat the low-cost plant foods easily available in all countries that can prevent vitamin A deficiency.

Consumer resistance has special importance among the really poor people for whom Golden Rice actually might otherwise prove useful. That’s because when rice is poorly stored it can be infected with a yellow mould causing the deadly “yellow rice disease” (beriberi) if consumed. Only a decade ago this was thought to have killed dozens of male sugar workers in the Maranhao region of Brazil (Rosa et al., 2010). Is that really a type of consumer resistance we want to debunk?

The Rosa paper does not prove that the epidemic and accompanying deaths in Brazil were due to the mould, just that the mould was present in rice in the area of the outbreak. However, Brazilian authorities we talked with in 2007 believed that the mould was almost certainly involved and probably the main cause. But one does see beriberi in the East (this is the first large-scale outbreak in the West) among hard working men who drink a lot of alcohol and eat mainly white rice.

Penicillium citreonigrum Dierckx is the name of the mould that turns rice yellowish. Another can turn it brownish. Infected rice does not really look like Golden Rice. My point is rather that people in places where rice often gets wet during storage generally know that yellow rice is dangerous.  Telling them that yellow rice is safe—a message Golden Rice will have to trumpet–sounds like a typical self-serving message that has the additional disadvantage of putting people in danger. Teaching them WHICH appearance safe vs unsafe rice has is again getting into pretty great detail and expense.

In Bangladesh I was involved with a communication NGO, the Worldview International Foundation, that worked with 10 million people to convince them to grow and consume high-carotene foods. We conducted a large-scale evaluation to see if it worked. It did. It cost only $0.15 per capita—though this was over two decades ago. But it also had many side benefits, such as the other nutrients contained in fresh vegetables (Greiner and Mitra, 1995).

The signatures of 107 Nobel Laureates do not prove that Golden Rice is safe or effective—but they do prove that, no matter how good scientists are in their own narrow fields, they are often no smarter than any of the rest of us about many other things. Sometimes their egos even get the best of them and they go out on a limb and say things without properly researching them first, especially when other smart people have already come out and done so. The people who designed Golden Rice clearly were also unaware of “yellow rice disease”, with much less excuse. (Or they were and had no scruples.)

And if you have read this far, pat yourself on the back! You now know more than 107 Nobel Laureates about something concerning which they signed a letter; sadly putting their scientific reputations on the line.

The Repression in Bahrain

Patrick Cockburn

Bahrainis are calling their government’s intensified repression of all opposition “the Egyptian strategy”, believing that it is modelled on the ruthless campaign by the Egyptian security forces to crush even the smallest signs of dissent.

In recent weeks leading advocates of human rights in Bahrain have been jailed in conditions directed at breaking them physically and mentally, while others, already in prison, have been given longer sentences. The Bahraini citizenship of Sheikh Isa Qasim, the spiritual leader of the Shia majority in Bahrain, was revoked and the headquarters of the main opposition party, al-Wifaq, closed and its activities suspended.

Bahrain, once considered one of the more liberal Arab monarchies, is turning into a police state as vicious and arbitrary as anywhere else in the region. Mass protests demanding an end to the Sunni al-Khalifa dynasty’s monopoly of power during the Arab Spring period in 2011 were violently suppressed with Saudi military and financial help. The authorities agreed to an international investigation into what had happened that revealed widespread use of torture, unjust imprisonment and killings of protesters. Repression continued over the following five years but failed to eliminate entirely the protest movement, despite imprisoning at least 3,500 Bahrainis.

Brutalisation of these detainees has markedly increased in the past few months, a prominent example being the arrest of Nabeel Rajab, Bahrain’s leading human rights advocate. He was arrested on the 13 June on the grounds that he had made comments in the social media alleging torture in Jau prison and criticising air strikes by a Saudi-led coalition in Yemen. Rajab had been imprisoned for expressing dissent in the past, but this time he was placed in solitary confinement for 15 days.

Conditions in East Riffa police station, and later in West Riffa police station, to which he was transferred, appear to have been deliberately geared to break his morale, forcing him to use lavatories so filthy and infested with insects that he tried to eat very little so he would not have to visit them.

He lost 8kg in weight over 15 days in solitary confinement before he was taken to hospital where he was diagnosed as having an irregular heartbeat. His wife, Sumaya Rajaab, says the police did not allow the doctor to complete his examination before taking her husband back to same police station where he had previously been confined. “The authorities clearly intend to punish Nabeel Rajab by isolating him as if he were a dangerous criminal,” said Joe Stork, deputy Middle East director of Human Rights Watch. Rajab faces a 13-year prison sentence when he comes to trial on Tuesday.

He is not the only victim of enhanced mistreatment by the Bahraini security forces. Dr Abdul Jalil al-Singace, another human rights activist in Bahrain, has been in Jau prison since 2011 after he was sentenced to life imprisonment for allegedly plotting to overthrow the government in the Arab Spring protests demanding greater democracy. A polio victim who can only stand on one leg, he was nevertheless tortured at the time of his detention by beatings, sexual assault and being forced to stand upright for long periods despite his disability.

The Bahrain authorities promised improved conditions for prisoners at the time of the Bahrain Independent Commission of Inquiry in 2011, but recently his family have become worried that the Bahrain security forces are depriving him of his medications that he needs to treat his many disabilities, including post-polio syndrome. What is striking about the Bahrain government’s new campaign to suppress dissent is not only its cruelty but its pettiness such as, say Dr al-Singace’s family, depriving him of the rubber pads for his crutches.

Bahraini opposition leaders in exile say that the final decision by the authorities to systematically stamp out any remaining opposition in Bahrain was taken about two months ago. The security forces were influenced by the example of Egypt, where there are an estimated 60,000 political prisoners. Ali al-Aswad, a former opposition MP, says: “We have been told by a source that the heads of the security services have wanted to take a tougher line based on that being followed in Egypt for a year.

But the switch in Bahraini policy appears to have been triggered by a trip King Hamad bin Issa al-Khalifa took to Saudi Arabia. Saudi considers Bahrain to be very much within its sphere of influence and sent troops across the causeway to Bahrain in March 2011 to help end the Arab Spring protests.

The event indicating that the Egyptian model had been adopted came at the end of May when Sheikh Ali Salman, the leader of al-Wifaq opposition party, who had previously been sentenced for inciting hatred, disobedience and insulting public institutions, had his sentence increased from four to nine years. This was significant because the US and UK had been lobbying King Hamad to reduce the sentence or issue a pardon. US Secretary of State John Kerry had visited Bahrain in April and had raised the matter with the King.

It is unsurprising that Saudi Arabia should look for more aggressive action against the Shia majority in Bahrain because the island neighbours Saudi Arabia’s Eastern Province where the population is also largely Shia. With Deputy Crown Prince and Defence Minister Mohammed bin Salman wielding predominant political influence in Saudi Arabia, it has become more militant in repelling what it claims is an Iranian-backed Shia offensive against the Sunni.

The Bahrain government’s crackdown on dissent has proceeded swiftly and ruthlessly over the six weeks since Sheikh Ali Salman’s sentence was more than doubled. On 14 June the authorities issued an “expedited” instruction to close down the headquarters of al-Wifaq, seize its funds and end its activities. A day earlier, Nabeel Rajab had been arrested. On 20 June the citizenship of Sheikh Isa Qasim, the Shia spiritual leader, was revoked as has already happened to 300 other Bahraini citizens. Earlier in June another advocate of peaceful dissent, Zainab a-Khawaja, had fled abroad because she had heard she was about to be rearrested.

The Bahrain authorities probably calculate that the response of the US and UK to the effective ending of political and civil rights on the island will be mild. The US Fifth Fleet is based there and the UK is extending its naval facilities there with Bahrain footing the bill. The US lifted a prohibition on arms sales to Bahrain last year which had been in place since 2011. The British Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond has praised the Bahraini government’s “commitment to continuing reforms” and said it was “travelling in the right direction”.

Bahrain justifies repression by saying that civil rights and political activists are proxies for Iran but the 2011 inquiry debunked this. This week the Iranian supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei went out of his way to say that “the Islamic Republic of Iran will not intervene in any way in the affairs of Bahrain”. The al-Khalifa dynasty is under no threat to its existence at home or abroad, but its shift towards the Egyptian model of total repression is adding more venom to the sectarian hatreds already engulfing the region.

Japan’s Election Results Usher in War . . . and a Glimmer of Hope?

Jennifer Matsui

The LDP’s resounding victory in Sunday’s upper house election was not all bad news, contrary to the drearily predictable results that give the PM a firmer mandate to re-shape Japan to its largely imagined pre-war “glory”. Left wing parties and candidates made surprising gains that will serve as a more effective bulwark against a proposed amendment to the war-renouncing clause in the constitution, the construction of a new US military base in Okinawa, and of course, the adherence to failed American fiscal policy known domestically as “Abenomics”.    In one encouraging set back for the American led war party headed by Shinzo Abe, his state minister of Okinawan Affairs was unseated by an anti-base rival, delivering a decisive victory to the coalition of citizen activists whose anger over the recent murder of an Okinawan woman by a civilian base worker galvanized the forces necessary to oust the unpopular minister.

The Democratic Party’s thorough trouncing at the polls proved that a growing segment of the Japanese population no longer place their trust in an “opposition” party that traditionally gave their tacit support to the right wing ruling party in exchange for political favors. Voters now tilt emphatically right or left, squeezing out the squishy center that has defined the post-war electorate’s stance on issues ranging from defense to daycare.

The tendency to place oneself unthinkingly in the ‘center’ of the political spectrum where Japan’s one time prosperous, hopeful citizens positioned themselves has given way to despair for the future, and the belief that the nation’s super-power “protector” is in an irreversible free fall that will necessitate a constitutional amendment to expand Japan’s defense capabilities into international waters and airspace.  There is a sense of being vulnerable to the market and military-based “predations” of its closest super-power neighbor in the East that is being fueled in no small part by xenophobic policy makers acting on the behest of their silent American partners.  (One always fears the worst from former colonial subjects in sub-conscious acknowledgment of the historical wrongs perpetrated against them.)

Left wing parties have been given a renewed platform in the nation’s growing unease with nuclear power, which in turn has spawned a raised awareness of the underlying political and economic issues that brought the nation to its knees when a double disaster became a triple threat that continues to thwart all attempts at containing it.  Melting nuclear reactors, it turns out, have a way of diminishing public enthusiasm for politics and business as usual.

Even a successful bid for the 2020 Olympic Games can’t remove the stench of failure surrounding the government’s attempts to revive the economy, and the equally corrosive effects of its “free market” reforms on all those non-members of ‘Nippon Kaigi’, the feudal think tank/country club where non-seismic movers and shakers shape public policy outside of government to better reflect the objectives of a crouching and hidden war criminal class.

The mood here since March 11th has remained somber and cautiously pessimistic. The population can no longer be relied on to spend and consume their way out of this malaise, despite the government’s best efforts to scold pensioners for hanging on to their savings, and urging the more stubborn ones to die faster.

Growing discontentment with the status quo has largely been exploited by fringe right wing groups who are able to reach out to marginalized, angry young men via the internet. Well-funded and tech savvy, these organizations give unemployed and socially isolated gaming warriors a renewed sense of purpose to rise up against the Chinese “threat”, which somehow includes a mostly Japanese born Korean ethnic group whose “privileges” are loudly denounced at hate speech rallies around the country. Left wing parties and organizations have been slow to embrace technology, relying on old, no longer applicable methods of reaching out to a younger generation of voters and activists, which has largely contributed to their obsolescence among a demographic glued permanently to their i-phones.

Circumstances, however, in the form of a high rate of exchange that adversely affect exports, and the reckless money printing schemes meant to artificially deflate the yen, have intervened to partially derail public support for Abe’s “three arrow” economic plan. His failing fiscal policies now permanently stamped with his own name, along with his administration’s overreaching response to its critics have yielded promising signs of growing public mistrust of dynastic career politicians acting in the interests of their feudal forebears.

The recently passed “Security Law” that designates information that might undermine government and corporate efforts to sidestep the law and the constitution as “state secrets”, has mobilized a robust youth movement to counter this encroaching fascism. It’s hard to say if these mostly middle-class university student who formed SEALDS (Students Emergency Action for Liberal Democracy) will maintain their activist impulses in the wake of Emperor Abe’s most recent mandate-affirming coronation. It will take a fearless and sustained effort to endure the raised to ’11’ volume blasting from the right wing unarmored tank brigade, particularly now as it has gained steam from yesterday’s electorally foregone conclusion.

Sunday’s election was a milestone for 18 and 19 year old voters who took advantage of a change in the law that would allow them to vote for the first time. It’s not clear whether they were inspired to cast their historic ballots by the pervasive forces of ‘netto uyo’ – the aforementioned online right wing troll brigades, or whether they were encouraged by SEALD’s clear oppositional stance to ruling party overreach into the lives of citizens with a security bill that was drafted by the United States.

As things stand with Dishonest Abe’s decisive victory, it would seem a one time “defeated” nation is poised to more nobly defeat itself at the urging of its ‘former’ occupier – who incidentally, created the ruling LDP in its own democracy-crushing, red-bashing image.  “Overcoming Japan’s wartime defeat” is a pretty strange objective coming from a guy whose grandfather collaborated with GHQ to further entrench his pre-war position of power.  One nation’s defeat was to become a win-win for the architects of that particular failure.

Japan can either cede its sovereignty further to a basketcase benefactor in the name of “nationalism”, or it can make the choice to wean itself from a childish dependency on the bully enforcers of feudalism at home, and imposed neoliberalism from abroad.  LastSunday’s small but significant win for the Communist Party and their affiliated candidates offers a beacon of hope in the gloomy, uncertain days ahead.

Vanishing the People’s Wealth to Make the Bosses Richer

Ralph Nader

Imagine you are a shareholder in a big company and the top executives are sitting on huge amounts of cash and are not interested in putting it to work through productive capital investments, research and development, reducing company debt or paying employees a higher wage. What would you want done about it? Since you and other shareholders are the owners of the company, you’d likely say “give us back our money in cash dividends.”

“No way,” say your hired hands, the company managers, who have spent a staggering $2.1 trillion of your money in the last five years on stock buybacks allegedly to increase the company’s earnings per share ratio, instead of increasing shareholder dividends. Overall this tactic has not been working over time except to make the corporate bosses richer, which is the real reason for many buybacks.

What is the incentive for this cash burning frenzy? According to University of Massachusetts scholar, William Lazonick, in 2012 the 500 highest-paid executives received 52% of their remuneration from stock options and another 26% from stock awards.

Call it self-interest, or conflict of interest with their shareholder-owners, they continue to get away with this massive heist, this clever transfer of wealth. They do not need to get the approval of their owners – the stockholders – under what is called the “business judgement rule” (BJR). Developed by corporate attorneys and adopted with few boundaries by the Delaware courts – the state where corporate bosses go for pioneering leniency – the BJR strips the owners of corporations of meaningful control over the company executives and boards of directors other than to sell their stock, thereby leaving the rascals in charge.

Here is the definition of the BJR by the Delaware courts: “The business judgement rule…is a presumption that in making a business decision the directors of a corporation acted on an informed basis, in good faith and in the honest belief that the action taken was in the best interests of the corporation.”

How’s that for a legally entrenched entitlement during a growing decades-long corporate crime wave that largely goes unprosecuted by politically and budgetarily strapped enforcement agencies? A crime wave that in 2008 brought a criminally-speculative, self-enriching Wall Street down, draining trillions of dollars in pension fund and mutual fund assets – the very institutions that owned the most shares on the major stock exchanges!

Making matters worse, as Business Insider concludes, “all the evidence shows that – in recent years – they’ve [stock buybacks] not actually helped boost the stock values at all.” The bosses are eating the company’s seed corn. Indeed, before 1982 when the obeisant Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) opened the floodgates for this executive rampage, buybacks were illegal. They were considered insider trading by the top company executives.

How do these trillions of dollars of inert money accumulate? From conniving management that doesn’t know how or want to deploy it to increase the value of the company and its stakeholders. The money flows from consumers, taxpayers (corporate welfare) and from the sacrifices of workers whose needs and increased productivity could be rewarded with better pay and pensions.

Walmart’s buyback binge brings the impact closer to Hometown, USA. The company, whose controlling stock is held by the super-rich Walton family, has spent $70 billion in stock buybacks since 2004. Its poorly paid laborers, often without full-time hours, have a high turnover rate and cannot make ends meet for their families, not to mention a harsh paucity of benefits.

Looking at Costco and other big competitors, that pay better and experience lower turnover and higher worker morale, Walmart has inched its workers toward a minimum of $10 an hour in the past two years. How much family anguish and deprivation would have been avoided over the years if Walmart’s bosses did not waste tens of billions of dollars and instead followed founder Sam Walton’s practice of “retain and reinvest,” that built the company’s model?

Warren Buffett, in his letter to shareholders back in 1999, declared that “all too often,” repurchases of stock are made for an “ignoble reason: to pump or support the stock price.” Only now it’s mostly not even working for that narcissistic objective.

Massive stock buybacks have bizarrely resulted, since the mid-1980s, declares Mr. Lazonick, in corporations “funding the stock market rather than vice versa. Over the past decade net equity issues of non-financial corporations averaged minus $376 billion per year.” So much for stock markets raising investment capital.

In 2009, President Barack Obama pushed through Congress a modest $831 billion stimulus bill spread over a decade. The money was allocated to federal tax incentives, infrastructure, education and expansion of social welfare benefits such as unemployment compensation.

Republicans in the Congress hit the ceiling, attacking the bill as wasteful government spending. In a private enterprise, free market economy, they say it is not the government’s business to create jobs. Apparently, their big corporate paymasters believe that it’s not the business of business to use trillions of dollars of profits to create jobs either.